Denny Fitzpatrick is a retired American basketball player. He was

Most Valuable Player In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...

and leading scorer for the 1959 NCAA champion

California Golden Bears The California Golden Bears are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Berkeley. Referred to in athletic competition as ''California'' or ''Cal'', the university fields 30 varsity athletic programs and various club te ...

. Fitzpatrick was a 6'0" multi-sport star for Newport Harbor High School in

Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...

. He played first at Orange Coast junior college, then came to the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

to play for coach Pete Newell in 1958. As a senior in the 1958–59 season, Fitzpatrick had a big season, leading the Bears in scoring at 13.3 points per game and garnering first-team All-Pacific Coast Conference (now the

Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

) honors. In the

1959 NCAA tournament Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

, Fitzpatrick continued to pace the Bears. He scored 20 points in the NCAA final as Cal defeated

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

and All-American Jerry West in the tournament final. Fitzpatrick was named to the All-Final Four team and was awarded team MVP honors for the season.2010-11 Cal Golden Bears men's basketball media guide
accessed November 5, 2011 Following the close of his college career, Fitzpatrick continued to play basketball in the

Amateur Athletic Union The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It has ...

(AAU) and briefly turned to coaching, first at St. John Vianney High School, then at Hancock College in Santa Maria, CA with

John Madden John Earl Madden (April 10, 1936 – December 28, 2021) was an American football coach and sports commentator in the National Football League (NFL). He served as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders from 1969 to 1978, who he led to eight pla ...

as the football coach. He also was an avid

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

player and was a member of the 1961 AAU national champion Hollywood YMCA squad. HE became an excellent Senior Tennis player as well. Soon, he turned to real estate and built a successful real estate firm called PacTen Partners.

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Amateur Athletic Union men's basketball players Basketball players from California California Golden Bears men's basketball players High school basketball coaches in the United States Junior college men's basketball coaches in the United States Junior college men's basketball players in the United States Orange Coast College alumni Shooting guards American men's basketball players {{US-basketball-bio-stub